


Fishing For Compliments

by murderofonerose (atmilliways)



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Charles is the smartest dumb person I know, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Warnings for fish guttin', kloktober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26776453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose
Summary: The origins of the tradition were murky, but what Charles had gleaned from Nathan’s attempt at explaining was this: Oscar Explosion liked to fish, so there was an annual family fishing trip. Somehow, that seemed to be reason enough for Nathan to drag his manager, who had never held a fishing pole in his life, out to some lake in the middle of nowhere.
Relationships: Nathan Explosion/Charles Foster Offdensen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Fishing For Compliments

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Kloktober 2020 day 2 prompt, "OTP or favorite character." Again, I present you with both.

The origins of the tradition were murky, but what Charles had gleaned from Nathan’s attempt at explaining was this: Oscar Explosion liked to fish, so there was an annual family fishing trip. Somehow, that seemed to be reason enough for Nathan to drag his manager, who had never held a fishing pole in his life, out to some lake in the middle of nowhere. 

They sat in a boat that under other circumstances might fit four, but considering the build of both Explosion men really seated approximately two and a half. Charles was wedged into the bench seat between Nathan and the hull, listening to the crank of Nathan and Oscar’s reels as they caught the occasional fish. 

His own line remained slack. This was fine by him; he hadn’t been given all the details of the trip in advance, and he didn’t want any more fish-water on his suit trousers than had splashed there already. The matching suit jacket was a lost cause, already balled up and stuffed into the stern along with the bait and extra hooks, and his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up as high up his forearms as they would go, would undoubtedly come out of this ordeal with sweat stains about the arms and collar. His red tie was either in Nathan’s back pocket or at the bottom of the lake—he was too overheated to keep track. 

Wordlessly (because words might scare the fish), Oscar cracked open the drinks cooler— _not_ to be confused with the fish cooler or the bait cooler—and pulled out another trio of ice cold beers, passing two over his shoulder to his son and popping the top on his own. Nathan passed one to Charles and set to work chugging his , while Charles took a moment to press the cold aluminum to his forehead, temples, and the back of his neck first. It was very likely that he would come out of this with a horrific burn on every inch of bare skin but his nose, which Rose Explosion had simperingly but forcibly smeared with zinc oxide before they’d left the cabin that morning. He felt like an extra on Jaws. 

It was not, if Charles was being honest with himself, the best situation to feel so out of sorts in. While he remained outwardly stoic, here he was with Nathan. Nathan Explosion. _The_ Nathan Explosion, sitting so close to him that they were sweating on each other, with literally nothing to fill the silence or distract his idle mind from this fact of proximity. Also spinning through his brain was the question of why he had even been invited to come here in the first place. He had met Nathan’s parents before, of course, but never spent time around them like this. Was there any significance to Nathan suddenly seeming to want that? Not that Charles expected—No. He absolutely refused to let his secret attachment to the man color his view of this. 

Nathan nudged his arm, and it was a testament to Charles’ iron grip on himself that he didn’t jump out of his skin. “Line,” Nathan rumbled, pointing one black-nailed finger towards where Charles’ fishing line disappeared into the water. 

The closest Charles had ever been to catching a fish before in his life had been . . . when he’d watched Jaws in theaters, probably. (And that was another thing, Nathan had probably been too young to see that movie until after it had come out on VHS. There were so many reasons not to feel so electrified by the thought of the man sweating on him, besides the main, central thesis that there was no way Nathan would actually return such feelings. So there was no point thinking about it. And he usually didn’t, but they usually weren’t _mashed together like sardines_ _in a can_ this way, with the shape of Nathan’s elbow warm against his side.) Fish just weren’t something that ever came up in university or court or board room situations. 

“So, ah, what do I do?” he asked flatly. 

What he was hoping Nathan wouldn’t do was put both arms around him and correct his grip on the pole from ‘holding’ to ‘reeling.’ That was, of course, exactly what Nathan did. It was probably a derivative of how Oscar had taught him, and he didn’t think of it as weird at all. 

_I cannot read into this_ , Charles told himself firmly as he was guided through bringing in his catch, Nathan’s chest touching his back and hair tickling his neck. _Or get used to it._ Then a net was shoved into his hand, and in trying to catch the silvery presumed-fish blur at the end of the line he probably would have dropped the fishing pole in the lake if Nathan hadn’t already had hands on it. 

“That’s a big one,” Oscar whooped, clapping Charles on the shoulder. “Good going. Son, clunk that bastard on the head and get it in the cooler, we’re rowing back in!”

Twenty minutes later when they were back ashore, Charles turned towards Nathan and asked out of the corner of his mouth, “Did we only stay out there so long because, ah, you two wanted me to catch something?”

Nathan shrugged. “Yeah. Everyone fishing gets at least one fish, that’s the rule.”

“Yes, but we were, ah, out there for hours. I wouldn’t have minded not catching anything.”

“But it’s the rule,” Nathan repeated. 

“. . . I see.” Sometimes it still surprised him how wholesome Nathan’s childhood had been that, for all his bleakness and darkness, he still sometimes spouted things like that as though they were basic universal facts. 

“Yeah… So, wanna come help me gut the fish? It’s fucking cool, sometimes a big egg sack slides out and you can tell the fish was a chick.”

 _And we’re back_. “Sure,” Charles said, and proceeded to stand around awkwardly and watch while Nathan did most of the work with surprising efficiency and skill. Then again, the man’s favorite subject in high school had been frog dissection—so perhaps not so surprising after all. 

When Nathan ran out of fish, they carried the gutted catches around to the side of the cabin where Oscar had set up the grill, smoke trickling up towards the clear blue sky.

As soon as the fish were laid over the glowing coals, Nathan said, “Hey, I’ve got something for you guys. Uh, dad and Offdensen.” He glanced in his mother’s direction and shrugged. “‘Cause I sent flowers for Mother’s Day but I’ve missed Father’s Day the last . . . a bunch of times.” He was pulling something out his jeans pocket. 

Whatever Charles had thought about being included in this family affair, he hadn’t anticipated this. Nathan was giving him a Father’s Day present, of all things? He’d always been conscious that there was a bit of an age difference between them but nothing could have prepared him for this blow, which briefly left him feeling as though his heart had sunk so far as to actually squish out of his body and dribble uselessly into the earth. Rejection was one thing; he hadn’t even been friend-zoned, but _dad-zoned_. 

Nathan produced two plastic ziplock bags. Charles opened his with fingers numb from humiliation, just managing not to drop the red silk that threatened to slither through his fingers. 

It was a tie. Oscar’s was blue with tiny anchors and boat wheels, while the one Charles held was dotted with irregular-shaped dots. Upon closer inspection, he realized they were minuscule representations of the band’s mascot, Facebones, with just enough variation between each tiny skull that it had been embroidered by hand. Not by Nathan, who Charles had never once seen in the same room as any kind of sewing needle, but the attention to detail was actually quite touching. . . . Or would have been, under different circumstances. 

While Oscar gave his son a manly round-the-shoulders hug and held his tie up for Rose to inspect, Charles mustered up a polite smile. “Thank you, Nathan. Do you, ah, mind if I keep this in my pocket for now? I don’t want to get it dirty.”

Nathan shrugged out of the fatherly hug and nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

“They’re both very nice, sweetie,” Rose chimed in. “Your father can wear his to church on Sunday.”

“That’s . . . great, Mom.”

Rose turned. “Do you go to church, Charles?”

“I’m afraid I don’t usually have the time, Mrs. Explosion,” he replied diplomatically. In all honesty, besides that messy cleanup at the Satanic Church after Murderface's short-lived religion kick, he couldn't remember the last time he had set foot in one. 

“Oh, well.” She smiled blandly at him. “No ones perfect, I guess.”

More beers were broken out, and by the time dinner was served the picnic table by the edge of the water was dappled with setting sunlight streaming in from beyond the nearby trees. Charles was also more tipsy from the constant beer supply (Nathan seemed to have an unerring radar for when his can was nearly empty, and kept handing him new ones like the dutiful host Rose had undoubtedly tried to shape him into) than he’d prefer to admit. He mostly stayed out of the mealtime chatter, except to inquire politely about the species of fish they were eating and pretend as though he might do something with the information. 

The conversation was mostly carried by Oscar and Rose anyway. As the amount of fish on the table dwindled, so did Nathan’s apparent interest in being there. He was, after all, a member of Dethklok—a group notorious for having short attention spans. Charles was used to this, and discreetly sent a message off to their Dethkopter pilot for a pickup sooner rather than later. His suit jacket was still in the boat, but it could always be replaced. 

After exchanging obligatory “this has been fun”s and being subjected to goodbye hugs, the two men boarded the helicopter with the rotors drowning out the sound of cicadas. Charles made to head for his onboard office, a small facsimile of his office in Mordhaus yet adequate for his needs, but Nathan stopped him. 

“You like the tie, right?” This was asked from behind a curtain of hair, which Charles didn’t think was quite fair. He wasn’t at so much of a height disadvantage with the man that Nathan needed to stoop _that_ much to look at him. 

“Yes, Nathan. I like the tie.” He pulled the plastic bag from his pocket and looked at it again. It really was a nice tie. “I’ll put it on as soon as I’ve had a chance to shower and change. Fishing is a rather, ah, fragrant activity.”

“Okay. Well. Good,” Nathan grunted. 

Then there was an empty space in the conversation wide enough that the SMS Titanic could have cruised through with room to spare, during which Nathan made no move to let him pass, just stared intently as though waiting for Charles to say something. Charles, for his part, was mystified as to what Nathan expected and waited patiently for more information to work off of. 

“So,” the frontman continued awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot, “uh. Want to hang out, back at the Haus? When we get there.”

Charles repressed the impulse to pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh. On one hand, his entire work day had been disrupted by this trip, and there were probably some time sensitive tasks that could benefit from his attention. On the other, he wanted to shut himself into his private rooms with a snifter and a bottle of brandy to fully absorb and recover from the whole . . . father thing. On neither of those hands did he want to take more time off to play ‘dad’ to one of his ‘sons.’

“Sorry, Nathan,” he replied firmly. “I’m afraid I have quite a bit on my to-do list this evening.” Had he been in a better mood, he would have tacked on his usual vague ‘maybe some other time,’ but he was already trying very hard not to let his stung feelings show through as annoyance as it was. 

Nathan frowned. “But you said you liked the tie!”

“The tie is fine” Charles snapped. “It’s a perfectly acceptable gift to give a father figure.”

. . . . Okay, so much for not showing pique. 

There was another pause, but shorter and of very different quality—still mystifying though. He watched Nathan scowl harder, then thoughtful, then both the man’s thick black eyebrows shot up in surprise, like watching a cartoon reel frame by frame. 

“Oh man,” Nathan said, and held a loosely curled fist in front of his mouth. Charles got the distinct impression that he was trying not to laugh. “Oh man, Charles. Are you pissed off?” A single laugh broke through, but mostly as a snort. “Look, I meant to say some other stuff when I gave it to you, but, ugh. Not in front of my _parents_.”

Charles blinked. “What, ah, other stuff?” he asked cautiously. 

“That I think you’re fucking badass,” Nathan replied easily. That was rock star confidence for you, Charles thought a little bitterly before he had fully processed the statement. “And I think you’re a good dad for my idiot bandmates who don't already have one, not _me_.”

If Charles’ face hadn’t already been sunburnt, he might have blushed. 

“I don’t usually get to think of you as stupid,” Nathan continued with a grin. “You really didn’t notice I was hitting on you all day?”

As he opened his mouth to say no, of course he hadn’t, there had been no flirting—Charles shut his mouth again. He thought about Nathan putting both arms around him to show him how to reel in his catch. He thought about Nathan showing off his fish gutting expertise. He thought about meeting Nathan’s parents in a completely non business-as-usual context, and sitting down to dinner with them, and then . . . well, everything Nathan had just said. 

Charles pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “. . . Fuck.”

“You wanna?” Nathan asked with a smirk, arms crossed in what was definitely supposed to be a pose to show off his arm muscles. Charles was pretty sure he was teasing. Mostly. 

“I’m older than you,” Charles pointed out. 

“And what, all the chicks Skwisgaar bangs are his age?” Nathan shot back. “No one fucking cares.”

“You’re technically my employer,” he tried. “One of them, anyway.”

“So I’ll sign whatever you want so I can’t get pissed off and fire you or whatever. Next.”

“As far as I knew until today, you’re heterosexual. Do you want to deal with the PR circus if it ever leaks that that’s not the case?”

“Name one thing Dethklok has ever done that we haven’t been able to make metal.”

Charles looked up, worrying the inside of his cheek with his teeth, where the tell couldn’t be seen. “You, ah, call me a robot. A lot.”

“Just as a joke. Robots don’t get pissed off,” Nathan said smugly. “And you wouldn’t be pissed if you didn’t like me.”

That was such a direct hit true statement that Charles couldn’t think of any retort. He should have protested, on principal, but . . . he _did_ like Nathan. He’d been trying not to admit it to anyone, and to think about it as little as possible even in the privacy of his own head, for years. Not once had he ever allowed himself to daydream about anything ever actually coming of it. 

Apparently the universe had decided to reward his diligent self-denial by making those un-dreamed daydreams a reality. 

A thought occurred to him though, and he asked, “Your, ah, parents don’t know that’s why you invited me along today, do they?”

“Fuck no!” Suddenly, for the first time in the conversation, Nathan looked uncertain. “I mean. . . . My dad definitely doesn’t, or he would’ve been weird about it.”

Charles remembered the serious glint in Rose Explosion’s eyes when asking him if he went to church, and silently acknowledged her as the most observant—and probably also the most tactful—member of the family. She hadn’t said anything directly, and Nathan contacted his family so infrequently that it would be a long time before either of them had to worry about her again. So that was fine. He decided to let it go. 

And then, he really couldn’t think of anything else. The lawyer in him was disappointed in himself, but the lawyer in him was also part of why he had ended up celibate for the better part of a decade. Nathan was offering something here, something that, for all his objections, Charles dearly wanted to accept. The lawyer in him could go fuck himself. 

“I, ah, really do appreciate the tie,” Charles offered. “You must have gone through some trouble to find someone to make this.”

Nathan shrugged and grunted, “Etsy,” as if that explained everything. Which it did, nearly. The big man reached out and tugged on Charles’ elbow, still bent as his hand hovered in the vicinity of pinching the bridge of his nose again out of sheer habit, and tugged him closer. Charles found himself drawn into the curtain of Nathan’s long, dark hair, head tilting back automatically to meet Nathan’s looming green eyes—to meet Nathan’s mouth with his. 

It was good, for a first kiss. Their teeth clacked a bit. Even so, Charles felt electricity spark all the way through him at this unprecedented contact. Not perfect, but it would get even better. With practice. 

After a moment, Nathan pulled back with a cat-that-caught-the-canary grin and said, “Dude, you fucking smell like fish.”

“I could say the same about you,” Charles replied dryly. 

“Yeah. You wanna . . . y’know, since we could both use a shower. . . ?”

Charles tapped his chest with a finger in mild reprimand. “You’ll have to wait until at least the second or third date for _that._ ” 

Inwardly, he gasped at himself for being so forward. This new arrangement would take some getting used to. It would probably be best to take it slow and not to rush things. 

“In the meantime,” he continued, “I, ah, wouldn’t say no to hanging out once we get back to the Haus, if you still want to.”

Nathan brightened. “Second date?”

“A continuation of the first, with the crucial difference of _both_ parties being aware that it is, in fact, a date,” Charles said firmly. “And . . . with no parents around.”

“Fucking awesome.” Grinning, Nathan kissed him again briefly, grabbing his manager's ass and breaking the kiss with an even bigger grin at his buns of super-metal steel. “Wear the tie.”

After that, Charles was left to make his own way to the nearest unoccupied shower to, at the absolute least, get clean. It was entirely possible that they would not end up taking things slow, and if there were repercussions down the road then so be it. What was life for if not to, in the end, feel as though you’d really lived it?

He was _definitely_ going to wear the tie.


End file.
